Pac-Man Hits the Road

Pac-Man hits the road
(Someone painted the '80s video-game icon on Hwy. 55.)
By Jim Adams, Star Tribune
December 20, 2006

The Wright County sheriff heard from his deputies about the whimsical road
art and decided to take a look for himself.

Sheriff Gary Miller cruised east from Buffalo to the stretch of Hwy. 55 with large, white ovals painted by the state to slow tailgaters by showing drivers how far apart to stay. About halfway
through the stretch he saw the unauthorized addition: a giant rendition of a yellow Pac-Man, the jaws from the 1980s video game trailblazer, attacking an oval dot on the pavement.

"I drove that road the other day," an amused Miller said, "and drivers were bunched up to figure out what it was ... It's definitely a Pac-Man eating a dot." The oversize Pac-Man, at least a month old, may be a plus as people ease off the gas to catch a glimpse, he said.

"It's kind of comical," added county highway engineer Wayne Fingalson. "Somebody really did a good job of meticulously putting that [Pac-Man] in the dots."

Tom Dumont, the area traffic engineer for the Department of Transportation, wasn't pleased with the art work amid the $15,000 project. But he expects snowplows to chew up Pac-Man before the yellow jaws or road wear consume the dots. Pac-Man is not a safety concern, he said, except for the people who painted it and apparently have touched it up once or more.

"As word gets out, it's drawing more attention to the dots," Dumont said. "I'd hate to say positive things because I don't want to encourage people to try to paint something on a busy highway. But at least it's made the project a little more noteworthy," Dumont said.

The 7-foot dots are 225 feet apart, the distance needed at the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit, to stop in three seconds without rear-ending the vehicle ahead. Accompanying signs tell drivers to keep two dots apart in the stretch, traveled by an average of 16,000 vehicles a day.